Hello, everyone! My name is John Ridlehoover, and I am a professional writer with a degree in English. I am an avid reader, and spend at least a few hours writing each day. I have worked in many different areas of professional writing, including business writing, journalism, and movie reviews. I was glad to find the volunteering opportunity with HCLE, because it gives me the chance to learn, while also helping a great organization. I am currently living in South Carolina with my wife and dog. My interests include guitar, comics, cartoons, and southern food.
Profile:
Education: Graduated with a Bachelor's in English/Professional Writing from Lander University.
Experience: Content Manager at VA Home Loan Centers since Jan 2015
Media Manager at Hydrus Technologies from 2013-2014
LL20170818: Good job on your first page, John. I made a few changes for you to look over. If you like them let's keep them. If not, edit the page again. We'll keep changing it until we both like it, then we should ask some friends to be "outside reviewers". It doesn't need to be perfect, just good enough to get the message across.
One issue to be addressed: Volunteers have to talk to me before I'll give them editing access to the wiki just as I did with you. The text doesn't say that yet. Can you work it in? Let me know when I should look at it again.
LL20170818: Thanks for emailing me, John. I'll review this sample page and give you feedback right away. http://hcle.wikispaces.com/Volunteer+Sample+Page
Please add 2 columns to your volunteer hours table: hours on this task and cumulative volunteer hours. When you get to 60 total hours we'll do a review.
Also please add an "on-call" schedule to this page. I'd like you to choose two hours each week when you will be available to meet with me by phone. I may not actually use these on-call sessions every week but it let's me call you without worrying whether I'm interrupting your normal life. Once we've determined that I'm also available during your on-call hours you can also call me with questions or comments. If you don't get a call you can use your on-call time to work on whatever tasks you have on deck.
LL20170723. Both John. Why not choose a couple of pages you think you can improve on and make new ones with the same info. Then, if you have new information that is, in your opinion, on topic you can add it as new pages. My management style is to be minimally directive at first so that I can see and take advantage of your initiative. You may have an idea that is entirely different from and better than mine. I don't want to lose that opportunity by telling you exactly what to do. On the other hand, I'm happy to give you specific instruction to the point of obnoxious micromanagement. We
just have to jump in and find a level that works for both of us. So, a more directive response is: please start by creating a new Volunteering page. I'd like all the existing information to appear on the new page and any new information from this Salesforce document to be added. This might mean you need to create a separate section for Salesforce Volunteers, your decision. It would be good to make the layout more appealing, to add any relevant navigation links and probably add some pictures. I'd like to keep the color scheme from the image on the HCLE wiki home page. We have lots of images at our Collections site and at http://www.loopcntr.net/repository/1514.jpg. (You have to change the image number to see different images in the repository. Numbers run from 1001 to 3000 but many of them are empty.) If you need help viewing the images please call me and I'll walk you through the process using screen sharing on Google Hangout. When you have a sample to show me, send me an email with the url. There's no wrong way to do this so don't be shy. I may decide not to use your first design but that is not failure or wrongness. We're just beginning to learn each other's taste, design sense and skill. Editing always includes many dead ends/learning opportunities.
My goal in making assignments for you is to have at least three tasks on your plate at a time that you can work on independently. That way, if you complete one or get stuck and need advice, you can switch to another task while you're waiting to get together with me. For this to work you have to be comfortable leaving an assignment unfinished, perhaps for weeks at a time while you work on something else with higher priority. Take a look at the specific tasks I added for you below (e.g. 1.1). There is always more to learn about the wiki editor and, since you can also use raw HTML on wiki pages, there's all of HTML to master. This can be one of your background tasks. Have you completed 1.2 yet? That would be a good idea before setting out to revise the Volunteering page. If you don't have experience designing your own pages I suggest you surf around the public pages on wikispaces and pick out a few designs you like to share with me. Remember, there are no "right" answers. This is a chance to let your creativity shine and exercise both your design and writing muscles. Dive in. If you'd like a flotation device, call me or email. I can be even more directive if you want me to.
JR20170717. Liza, for the sample pages were you thinking about including new information that hasn't been touched on in other HCLE pages, or just moving around info from other pages to make the site more uniform?
LL20170716. Hi John. I'm glad to see you're communicating with Tom. He's been working on this project for several years and has lots of good ideas.
Please notice that this chain of communication should be "last in, first out" so the latest notes get added at the top. Also, please start with your initials and the date in YearMonthDay format. Doing this means you don't have to scroll down to find new messages and you can tell when they were posted.
JR20170715. Hey Liza, I had a few ideas for the volunteer page. It may benefit from giving the list of volunteers (both inactive and active) their own separate page, so that the actual Volunteer page is less cluttered. Also a link to the Volunteer Page on the sidebar could be helpful. I'm not very well-versed in HTML, I can only do basic things until I learn a little more.
LL20170710. Congratulations, John, on getting this page started. I look forward to reading all the sections as you write them. You can always call me if you'd like to talk about what to include. The nice thing about wikis is that you can edit what you write so easily.
LL20170712. Answering your emailed question, John. Yes, log every second you spend thinking about LO*OP issues, studying to learn how to do something for LO*OP, planning what you are going to do, updating this wiki or any of our other web sites, writing for us and talking to me or other LO*OP people.
Please start working on improving the wiki. Read all the volunteer pages and propose a design for a well organized, readable volunteer section with plenty of navigation links so that viewers can move around the site easily. You can build some sample pages for me to look at. If I like the approach you suggest I'll give you the go ahead to implement your changes. If not, we can talk until we find a design that works for both of us. I often ask other people to review proposed designs as well because I'm too close to the material to have good judgement about how newcomers will respond. I'd like to stick with the color scheme on the home page but I really haven't developed any other "look and feel". Long-term I'd like to move off wikispaces and onto MediaWiki. You might want to study MediaWiki a bit so your design is easily transportable. Check in with me within a day or two just in case you start heading off in the wrong direction. I'd feel bad if you put in a lot of effort and then I nixed it. I added some specific tasks to show you what I intended for that section. Please see these as suggestions, not requirements and edit them to fit your working style. Don't hesitate to phone or email me as soon as a question arises. Good luck.
Goals and Objectives:
Create easy to follow instructions for their incoming volunteers.
Improve content on website and wiki page.
Learn more about creating instruction manuals.
Help HCLE run as efficiently as possible.
Specific Tasks:
1 Revise Volunteer Section of hcle.org
1.1 Learn the wikispaces editor
1.2 Review all existing volunteer related pages
1.3 Propose new pages needed for clarity and coherence
1.4 Propose structural relationship between pages in the section with navigation
1.5 Propose attractive look & feel for volunteer section
1.6 Implement sample pages as needed without disturbing existing site
1.7 Compare mediawiki with wikispaces in preparation for later migration
Volunteer Hours
Date
Hours
Accomplished
Hours on this Task
Cumulative Hours
9/20/2017
1
Brainstormed ideas of Exhibits Page
1
11
9/15/2017
1
Brainstormed new About the Staff page/explored other pages
Introduction:
Hello, everyone! My name is John Ridlehoover, and I am a professional writer with a degree in English. I am an avid reader, and spend at least a few hours writing each day. I have worked in many different areas of professional writing, including business writing, journalism, and movie reviews. I was glad to find the volunteering opportunity with HCLE, because it gives me the chance to learn, while also helping a great organization. I am currently living in South Carolina with my wife and dog. My interests include guitar, comics, cartoons, and southern food.
Profile:
Education: Graduated with a Bachelor's in English/Professional Writing from Lander University.
Experience: Content Manager at VA Home Loan Centers since Jan 2015
Media Manager at Hydrus Technologies from 2013-2014
Communication:
JR20170911: Liza, I cleaned up the Home Page a little. If you get a chance, let me know what you think: http://hcle.wikispaces.com/Sample+Home
LL20170818: Good job on your first page, John. I made a few changes for you to look over. If you like them let's keep them. If not, edit the page again. We'll keep changing it until we both like it, then we should ask some friends to be "outside reviewers". It doesn't need to be perfect, just good enough to get the message across.
One issue to be addressed: Volunteers have to talk to me before I'll give them editing access to the wiki just as I did with you. The text doesn't say that yet. Can you work it in? Let me know when I should look at it again.
LL20170818: Thanks for emailing me, John. I'll review this sample page and give you feedback right away. http://hcle.wikispaces.com/Volunteer+Sample+Page
Please add 2 columns to your volunteer hours table: hours on this task and cumulative volunteer hours. When you get to 60 total hours we'll do a review.
Also please add an "on-call" schedule to this page. I'd like you to choose two hours each week when you will be available to meet with me by phone. I may not actually use these on-call sessions every week but it let's me call you without worrying whether I'm interrupting your normal life. Once we've determined that I'm also available during your on-call hours you can also call me with questions or comments. If you don't get a call you can use your on-call time to work on whatever tasks you have on deck.
LL20170723. Both John. Why not choose a couple of pages you think you can improve on and make new ones with the same info. Then, if you have new information that is, in your opinion, on topic you can add it as new pages. My management style is to be minimally directive at first so that I can see and take advantage of your initiative. You may have an idea that is entirely different from and better than mine. I don't want to lose that opportunity by telling you exactly what to do. On the other hand, I'm happy to give you specific instruction to the point of obnoxious micromanagement. We
just have to jump in and find a level that works for both of us. So, a more directive response is: please start by creating a new Volunteering page. I'd like all the existing information to appear on the new page and any new information from this Salesforce document to be added. This might mean you need to create a separate section for Salesforce Volunteers, your decision. It would be good to make the layout more appealing, to add any relevant navigation links and probably add some pictures. I'd like to keep the color scheme from the image on the HCLE wiki home page. We have lots of images at our Collections site and at http://www.loopcntr.net/repository/1514.jpg. (You have to change the image number to see different images in the repository. Numbers run from 1001 to 3000 but many of them are empty.) If you need help viewing the images please call me and I'll walk you through the process using screen sharing on Google Hangout. When you have a sample to show me, send me an email with the url. There's no wrong way to do this so don't be shy. I may decide not to use your first design but that is not failure or wrongness. We're just beginning to learn each other's taste, design sense and skill. Editing always includes many dead ends/learning opportunities.
My goal in making assignments for you is to have at least three tasks on your plate at a time that you can work on independently. That way, if you complete one or get stuck and need advice, you can switch to another task while you're waiting to get together with me. For this to work you have to be comfortable leaving an assignment unfinished, perhaps for weeks at a time while you work on something else with higher priority. Take a look at the specific tasks I added for you below (e.g. 1.1). There is always more to learn about the wiki editor and, since you can also use raw HTML on wiki pages, there's all of HTML to master. This can be one of your background tasks. Have you completed 1.2 yet? That would be a good idea before setting out to revise the Volunteering page. If you don't have experience designing your own pages I suggest you surf around the public pages on wikispaces and pick out a few designs you like to share with me. Remember, there are no "right" answers. This is a chance to let your creativity shine and exercise both your design and writing muscles. Dive in. If you'd like a flotation device, call me or email. I can be even more directive if you want me to.
JR20170717. Liza, for the sample pages were you thinking about including new information that hasn't been touched on in other HCLE pages, or just moving around info from other pages to make the site more uniform?
LL20170716. Hi John. I'm glad to see you're communicating with Tom. He's been working on this project for several years and has lots of good ideas.
Please notice that this chain of communication should be "last in, first out" so the latest notes get added at the top. Also, please start with your initials and the date in YearMonthDay format. Doing this means you don't have to scroll down to find new messages and you can tell when they were posted.
JR20170715. Hey Liza, I had a few ideas for the volunteer page. It may benefit from giving the list of volunteers (both inactive and active) their own separate page, so that the actual Volunteer page is less cluttered. Also a link to the Volunteer Page on the sidebar could be helpful. I'm not very well-versed in HTML, I can only do basic things until I learn a little more.
LL20170710. Congratulations, John, on getting this page started. I look forward to reading all the sections as you write them. You can always call me if you'd like to talk about what to include. The nice thing about wikis is that you can edit what you write so easily.
LL20170712. Answering your emailed question, John. Yes, log every second you spend thinking about LO*OP issues, studying to learn how to do something for LO*OP, planning what you are going to do, updating this wiki or any of our other web sites, writing for us and talking to me or other LO*OP people.
Please start working on improving the wiki. Read all the volunteer pages and propose a design for a well organized, readable volunteer section with plenty of navigation links so that viewers can move around the site easily. You can build some sample pages for me to look at. If I like the approach you suggest I'll give you the go ahead to implement your changes. If not, we can talk until we find a design that works for both of us. I often ask other people to review proposed designs as well because I'm too close to the material to have good judgement about how newcomers will respond. I'd like to stick with the color scheme on the home page but I really haven't developed any other "look and feel". Long-term I'd like to move off wikispaces and onto MediaWiki. You might want to study MediaWiki a bit so your design is easily transportable. Check in with me within a day or two just in case you start heading off in the wrong direction. I'd feel bad if you put in a lot of effort and then I nixed it. I added some specific tasks to show you what I intended for that section. Please see these as suggestions, not requirements and edit them to fit your working style. Don't hesitate to phone or email me as soon as a question arises. Good luck.
Goals and Objectives:
Specific Tasks:
1 Revise Volunteer Section of hcle.org
1.1 Learn the wikispaces editor
1.2 Review all existing volunteer related pages
1.3 Propose new pages needed for clarity and coherence
1.4 Propose structural relationship between pages in the section with navigation
1.5 Propose attractive look & feel for volunteer section
1.6 Implement sample pages as needed without disturbing existing site
1.7 Compare mediawiki with wikispaces in preparation for later migration
Volunteer Hours
2. brainstormed ideas to improve wiki.
Friday: 4pm-5pm